Report reveals inmates suffer high levels of sexual abuse from guards

A new report by the Justice Department found prison inmates in Indianapolis, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Philadelphia suffered a higher-than-average rate of sexual abuse at the hands of guards.

ByAssociated PressMay 19, 2013

Young women watch TV at the Marathon County Jail Huber facility in Wausau, Wis. in 2010. A new report by the Justice Department revealed inmates suffer high levels of sexual abuse at the hands of guards.

Indianapolis — Inmates at jails in Indianapolis, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Philadelphia face the nation's highest levels of sexual abuse at the hands of guards, according to a new federal report based on surveys of inmates at US jails and prisons.

The report by the US Department of Justice found that the Marion County Jail's inmate-intake center in Indianapolis had a 7.7 percent rate of staff sexual misconduct involving inmates — the nation's highest for jails — and well above the average 1.8 percent sex abuse rate among all jails surveyed.

The second-highest rate was among inmates surveyed at the Baltimore City Detention Center, where a 6.7 percent rate of sex abuse by guards was found based on inmate interviews. The St. Louis Medium Security Institution and the Philadelphia City Industrial Correctional Center had the next-highest rate — both with a 6.3 percent abuse rate, based on the inmate surveys.

The report's authors surveyed 233 prisons, 358 local jails and 15 special correctional facilities, including five military facilities and five jails within Indian tribal areas.

Among all of the facilities sampled, the highest staff sexual misconduct was reported by inmates at the Oglala Sioux Tribal Offenders Facility in South Dakota, where there was a 10.8 percent sexual abuse rate.

That facility had a peak population of 147 inmates in June 2011 and was the most crowded among the 80 Indian incarceration facilities in operation at mid-year 2011, the report states.